The Littles were the title characters of a seres of children's novels by John Peterson , the first of which was published in 1967, that were adapted into a cartoon series by DiC Entertainment 16 years later. The Littles ran on ABC Saturday mornings from 1983 to 1986, It ran for a total of three seasons for a total of 29 episodes. Similar to Mary Norton's earlier novel The Borrowers, "The Littles" features a family of small but intelligent mouse-like creatures (the Littles) which lived in a house owned by the Bigg family. Naturally, only the 12-year old son of the family (Henry Bigg) knows about the Littles. The Littles is notable in that it was the very first cartoon produced by DiC.

The first two seasons of shows features the Littles around the Bigg household, but to improve the show's popularity the final season features the Littles traveling around the world.

During the production run of the show, the Littles were also popular enough to warrant two movie tie-ins. In 1985, the Littles starred in their first animated feature, "Here Come the Littles", directed by Bernard Deyriès and written by Eleanor Burian-Mohr , Jack Olesker , and Jeffrey Scott . The following year (1986), a made-for-tv movie was created starring the Littles, "Liberty and the Littles". This film was also directed by Bernard Deyriès and written by Heywood Kling . This second movie was subsequently edited into a three-part episode and included in the third season of the series.

As of 2004, the Littles are still in syndication and can be seen in some markets. In 2003, five episodes of the Littles and the feature movie were released on DVD.